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Massachusetts
Getting smart about tests
Teaching what's on them is the key to improving scores
By Kim Marshall
As many schools prepare to
open this week, Massachusetts is gearing up to give
some pivotal tests to every
student in fourth, eighth and
10th grades. The tests will begin next
spring, and soon students will not be
awarded a high school diploma unless they
The tests, dubbed the Massachusetts
Oimprulienshe Assessment System, or
MCAS, could improve teaching and learning, but they could also be unfair to students and damage the quality of education
across the state. To a great extent, this will
depend on whether schools get detailed information on what to expect in the tests,
and whether students have a fair chance to
study for them.
Wait a minute. Why should special information and preparation be necessary?
Don't the tests cover the regular curriculum we're teaching? That's what 1 used to
think. In my 10 years as a principal, I have
consistently told teachers that if they
taught well and used good curriculum materials, and their students worked hard,
standardized test scores
would go up.
But an experience
a.-.i spring changed my
mind. I sat down with
close look at the tests
our students are re-
eairedto take. We also
had an advance look at
the fourth-grade MCAS
.a giving tryouttest
items to our students in
May. On all the tests, we
were chagrined to find a significant number
of items that we weren't covering in our
classrooms.
After one meeting, I thwacked my forehead and thought, "It's alignment, stupid!"
Our students cannot do their best on tests
if they haven't been taught all the material.
How could a school not be teaching
what's on these important tests? What
could be more simple or basic? Actually,
this kind of misalignment is common.
Here's why. When the creators of standardized tests sit down to write their questions, they refer to an informal national curriculum that is "out there" in textbooks and
in guidelines around the country. The prob-
school. As
same grade level witt
a result, when many students open up the
standardized tests, their reaction is sometimes "Huh?" because they haven't been
exposed to the material.
The people who wrote the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993
thought they had this problem figured out.
Massachusetts first put out a statewide curriculum "framework" for each subject. This
is the same document that is being used to
draw up the MCAS tests. So there should
be a perfect alignment between the tests
and what's taught in classrooms, right?
Wrong. The state frameworks do not
spell out a grade-by-grade curriculum.
They cover each subject with a fairly broad
brush across several grade levels, leaving
considerable interpretation to the 351
At this very momer.t, assessment experts are writing MCAS tests based on
those curriculum frameworks. Many students who are theoretically studying the
same curriculum are likely to open up the
tests next spring and be unpleasantly surprised. And
this will be true not just because their teachers covered different content. The
test questions may be
dents are unprepared to
handle successfully. For example, students who are
used to multiple-choice
questions will be thrown for
phs to ejplain their thinking.
driving test without advance notice of what
competencies are expected. (You're going
to have to parallel park, so you'd better
practice or you'll flunk). The same is true
for high-stakes academic tests. At the end
of a good year, a student who has been
taught well and worked quite hard should
be able to open up the test and say, "Hello,
I know this stuff!"
But because of the uneven alignment between
what is being taught and
what will be tested, the
"Huh?" factor on the MCAS
tests is likely to be high. This
probably will produce four
predictable results:
First, the tests will give
an unfair advantage to more
economically advantaged
children. Higher-income children have access in their
homes and communities to
much of the common core of
knowledge and skills covered
by the tests. Poorer children
have less access, so they are
more dependent on their schools to teach
them this commmon core.
tern plays out, it will undermine the belief
in the educability of all students and the
value of hard work. It will feed the belief
gence is unevenly distributed in the population by class and race. But if curriculum is
aligned with tests, all students with access
well, which affirms
rtbyw
Third, if there isn't a tight alignment
between the ongoing curriculum and the
tests, there is likeh to oe frantic last niin
publishing firms will sell materials that
fused with better student learning). With
the hot breath of accountability on their
necks, many educators will spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of
fourth, an; mismatch of curriculum
lasts will undermine one of the main
poses of the MCAS, which is getting inflation on which schools are doing well
. which need to improve. If test scores
artifacts of social class and last-minute
ion, then it will lie difficult to
ools are adding value and
So what is to be done? How about a
more detailed and prescriptive curriculum,
like those in France or Japan? E. D. Hirsch
has made a compelling case in his recent
book, "The Schools We Need and Why We
Don't Have Them," that we need a much

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Transcript

Massachusetts
Getting smart about tests
Teaching what's on them is the key to improving scores
By Kim Marshall
As many schools prepare to
open this week, Massachusetts is gearing up to give
some pivotal tests to every
student in fourth, eighth and
10th grades. The tests will begin next
spring, and soon students will not be
awarded a high school diploma unless they
The tests, dubbed the Massachusetts
Oimprulienshe Assessment System, or
MCAS, could improve teaching and learning, but they could also be unfair to students and damage the quality of education
across the state. To a great extent, this will
depend on whether schools get detailed information on what to expect in the tests,
and whether students have a fair chance to
study for them.
Wait a minute. Why should special information and preparation be necessary?
Don't the tests cover the regular curriculum we're teaching? That's what 1 used to
think. In my 10 years as a principal, I have
consistently told teachers that if they
taught well and used good curriculum materials, and their students worked hard,
standardized test scores
would go up.
But an experience
a.-.i spring changed my
mind. I sat down with
close look at the tests
our students are re-
eairedto take. We also
had an advance look at
the fourth-grade MCAS
.a giving tryouttest
items to our students in
May. On all the tests, we
were chagrined to find a significant number
of items that we weren't covering in our
classrooms.
After one meeting, I thwacked my forehead and thought, "It's alignment, stupid!"
Our students cannot do their best on tests
if they haven't been taught all the material.
How could a school not be teaching
what's on these important tests? What
could be more simple or basic? Actually,
this kind of misalignment is common.
Here's why. When the creators of standardized tests sit down to write their questions, they refer to an informal national curriculum that is "out there" in textbooks and
in guidelines around the country. The prob-
school. As
same grade level witt
a result, when many students open up the
standardized tests, their reaction is sometimes "Huh?" because they haven't been
exposed to the material.
The people who wrote the Massachusetts Education Reform Act of 1993
thought they had this problem figured out.
Massachusetts first put out a statewide curriculum "framework" for each subject. This
is the same document that is being used to
draw up the MCAS tests. So there should
be a perfect alignment between the tests
and what's taught in classrooms, right?
Wrong. The state frameworks do not
spell out a grade-by-grade curriculum.
They cover each subject with a fairly broad
brush across several grade levels, leaving
considerable interpretation to the 351
At this very momer.t, assessment experts are writing MCAS tests based on
those curriculum frameworks. Many students who are theoretically studying the
same curriculum are likely to open up the
tests next spring and be unpleasantly surprised. And
this will be true not just because their teachers covered different content. The
test questions may be
dents are unprepared to
handle successfully. For example, students who are
used to multiple-choice
questions will be thrown for
phs to ejplain their thinking.
driving test without advance notice of what
competencies are expected. (You're going
to have to parallel park, so you'd better
practice or you'll flunk). The same is true
for high-stakes academic tests. At the end
of a good year, a student who has been
taught well and worked quite hard should
be able to open up the test and say, "Hello,
I know this stuff!"
But because of the uneven alignment between
what is being taught and
what will be tested, the
"Huh?" factor on the MCAS
tests is likely to be high. This
probably will produce four
predictable results:
First, the tests will give
an unfair advantage to more
economically advantaged
children. Higher-income children have access in their
homes and communities to
much of the common core of
knowledge and skills covered
by the tests. Poorer children
have less access, so they are
more dependent on their schools to teach
them this commmon core.
tern plays out, it will undermine the belief
in the educability of all students and the
value of hard work. It will feed the belief
gence is unevenly distributed in the population by class and race. But if curriculum is
aligned with tests, all students with access
well, which affirms
rtbyw
Third, if there isn't a tight alignment
between the ongoing curriculum and the
tests, there is likeh to oe frantic last niin
publishing firms will sell materials that
fused with better student learning). With
the hot breath of accountability on their
necks, many educators will spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of
fourth, an; mismatch of curriculum
lasts will undermine one of the main
poses of the MCAS, which is getting inflation on which schools are doing well
. which need to improve. If test scores
artifacts of social class and last-minute
ion, then it will lie difficult to
ools are adding value and
So what is to be done? How about a
more detailed and prescriptive curriculum,
like those in France or Japan? E. D. Hirsch
has made a compelling case in his recent
book, "The Schools We Need and Why We
Don't Have Them," that we need a much